Suggested Emphasis
“He who feeds on my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day.”
Salesian Perspective
Eucharist, the sun of all spiritual experiences
In today's gospel from John, chapter 6, we heard: "If you do not eat of the flesh of the son of man and drink his blood, you have no life in you. He who feeds on my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day."
John does not use the ordinary word for "eat" in this last verse; he uses the Greek verb "trogein" [tro-gain'] - to tear with the teeth, to gnaw. Perhaps the strongest, most vivid language in the New Testament! The English translation for this word is "feeds on" to indicate the change from simply "eat." And, he uses it 4 times in this section for emphasis. The earliest church communities understood these words to be literally true. The bread and wine really become the Body and Blood of Jesus. There were some who found this too hard to accept as you will hear next Sunday.
I would like to make two points: one, theological; the other, personal. First: this miracle of bread and wine changed into Body and Blood was later given by Catholic theologians the fancy name "transubstantiation." Some find Real Presence is just too "unscientific" for them. But, when we stop to think about it, is it any harder to accept that bread and wine become the Body and Blood of Christ than to accept the fact that broccoli, French fries, and chocolate ice cream become the body and blood of you and me -- using the fancy name of biologists: "assimilation"? Assimilation is accepted as a scientific fact by all; transubstantiation is rejected by some otherwise faith-filled Christians in spite of the biblical evidence in John's gospel.
Second: if we really believe that this particle, this sip, is really the Body and Blood of Jesus, why are we not more awed than we are when we receive our Lord, Body and Blood, after having heard God's words as sapiential food - food for the mind - in what has come to be called The Liturgy of the Word? These two sources of food are addressed in successive paragraphs in chapter 6, forming an outline of Eucharist as celebrated in about 100 C.E.
Do we need to remind ourselves of this magnificent miracle, the awesome reality of Jesus coming into you and me at Mass? When we receive our Lord, do we then take time to "be" with Jesus, to speak with him. . . and to listen? The Eucharist is not about some "thing" to be "received." It is so much deeper. It is mutual presence, at-one-ment. This is the personal aspect of Eucharist. We have personal encounter with him and we gradually change in the encounter; the encounter changes us if we bring our presence into His presence.
We understand why St. Francis de Sales called Eucharist "The sun of all spiritual experiences." It is that experience around which all other experiences revolve. It is the principal means by which you and I can Live Jesus. Our inner consciousness, fed both by divinely inspired word-presence and Eucharistic presence has a wonder-full, transforming effect in this interpenetrating of consciousnesses. It leads us to devotion in our lives in a singular, magnificent way.
Rev. William J. Dougherty, OSFS lives and works in Wilmington, Delaware
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